It's bright... Where are you?
You possess nothing you may have had earlier with you, and that includes your memories. Even so, you know you may survive.

Before you stands a beautiful garden out of which there is no exit, for surrounding it are walls stretching to inconceivable heights.
This leaves you with one choice: A single door at the end of the garden, through which you might find your means of escape.

[spoiler=Door]You enter a dark room. Behind you, the door closes, leaving you in pitch black darkness. Within 5 minutes you can hear something, crawling. Unable to see, even in the best condition, you find your demise at the hands of whatever it is that lurks in the dark.[/spoiler]

Shooting you up to let you know I'm going to be out of the office a couple hours early tonight. Have a personal engagement. If you would, be a dear and close up the office for me. I've got a list of what I'd like to get done on my desk. Check it all off, and help yourself to a bit of the cognac for good measure. We closed on a great quarter. You earned it.

Thanks,

Simon

eMEMO

[align=right]Rothschild & Co.[/align]

To:Simon LockwoodFrom:Marie PetersonDate:05/04/XX

Mr. Lockwood,

I picked up some Tylenol from the corner store, it's on your desk. Partied hard last night?

Marie Peterson

eMEMO

[align=right]Rothschild & Co.[/align]

To:Marie PetersonFrom:Simon LockwoodDate:05/04/XX

Marie,

Nothing slips past you. Went out with some old college friends, had a great time. Thanks, dear.

Simon

eMEMO

[align=right]Rothschild & Co.[/align]

To:Simon LockwoodFrom:Marie PetersonDate:05/04/XX

Mr. Lockwood,

Are you sure you're alright? You look ill. If you'd like, I can schedule an appointment with your doctor.

"For millenia, mercury has been thought to have restorative properties."

The man on stage pushed his glasses up his nose, an skewed smile slapped haphazardly on his lips. He was never good at public speaking. A quiet man of few words, but a mind to rival most - it was part of what Hope loved about him. Still, he held himself with a fair degree of confidence, reading the lines off the script she'd helped him prepare just two nights prior. This was his big moment. His breakthrough. Presenting years of research to the scientific community at large, the culmination of his life's hard work.

"Shui Yin, the Chinese called it, and they often mixed it into elixirs they believed held the key to eternal life. Alchemists in the Western world, however, referred to it by a different name. Hydragyrum, from Greek hydrogryros. Silver-water. This has bled down into a common name we use even to this day - quicksilver, meaning living silver, referring to its liquid properties and - more notably - the belief that in itself is living energy. Life in liquid form."

The crowd shifted, and Simon fidgeted. They did look a little impatient. All this was well known in the field of medicine, after all, and dismissed as pseudoscience of the past. Still, Hope held her place behind the curtain, eyes flicking between the stage, the audience, and the diagnostics screen running its final lines of code.

"They were wrong, of course. We all know that," Simon said. A few chuckles among the watchers seemed to ease his nerves. "However, I wish to present to you a discovery I have spent years building up to. We all know the risks of mercury poisoning, but we also know of its relative indegradability. It's often used as a preservative, after all, in pursuits where contact isn't an issue. I have - very carefully, might I add - found a way to incorporate this preserving strength, with none of the weaknesses of physiological toxicity."

The curtain pulled back to reveal the simple chamber. It was almost shower-like in appearance, constructed out of a circular plexiglass frame, the ceiling interspersed with a cluster of tubes and wires. Hope was fully prepared, of course. Unlike her husband, she lived for the stage, every little act fully entwined around the pulse of the crowd. As soon as the curtain vanished, she paced across the stage with a winning grin. Her confidence seemed to spread to Simon.

"Cellular transposition and base-chain protein reintegration," he said, words now booming in the silent room. "Or as I like to call it, Lazarus. A bit tacky, I know, I know, but think. Imagine, just for a moment, that a single call of code can bring you back from the brink of mortality, and in a flash of light -"

He snapped his fingers.

"- bestow you with eternal life."

The room was no longer hushed. Instead, it was filling with a wave of whispers, rising and falling in soft waves.

"You must be skeptical."

"Of course we are!" shouted a voice from the crowd. A few laughed.

"Then please, allow my lovely wife to demonstrate. She will proceed into the machine, I will activate the process, and then we can all take a look at the miracle science has bestowed!"

Her time to shine. Still smiling, interspersing her walk with an occasional wave, Hope approached and entered the machine. Simon pressed a button on the control panel and the door of the chamber slid shut. She could still hear his voice through the plastic, but it was muffled, tinged with the ring of vibration.

"It is currently calibrated to her imprint. Her biochemical blueprint, so to speak. In a few moments, it will rewrite her genetic structure, harmlessly weaving atomic mercury in as a stabilizing structure. Following this, she should no longer face cellular degeneration."

Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. Think of all the animal subjects that came out vibrant and lively, not the ones before... before the kinks had been worked out. Those were better left forgotten and buried. To ease her mind, she focused on counting in her head, unconsciously matching the pattern of clicks that began to rise in volume. Soon, they were followed with a hum, and the walls of the chamber began to vibrate.

The room was filled with hot, white light. At first, it was nice. Bathing in the sun in the beach. But then in grew hotter, and hotter, and hotter. Uncomfortably so. Something bitter tinged her tongue, and a hissing spark crept inside her ears. It burned. She opened her mouth - to tell him to turn it off? To let her out? To do something, this thing was going to kill her just like it had killed thousands of mice and pigs before, it was going to cook her alive from the inside, to leave her a steaming mess of metal and flesh and blood and -

The light faded. Grey returned. All grey. Only grey. Her knees buckled, and she fell into open arms.

[align=center]<Physiology and Powers>[/align][/font]
Gyras' body is biologically fused with pure 202Hg isotopic mercury. As such, in lieu of normal physiology, it possesses many of the chemical traits of the metal.

Fluid body. Her entire body is essentially fluid, capable of - to a small extent - topographically changing form and function. She is able to stretch her limbs to as far as her physical material allows, create constructs (as long as they remain attached to her surface), and absorb heavy kinetic impacts by expanding her body, in order to disperse the force over a larger area. While she is capable of fitting her entire body through small openings, such as grates or drains, it is difficult for her to both shift out of general humanoid form and return back to humanoid form once she's left it. As such, she rarely uses her power to this extreme in combat, only for travel.

Her entirety of mass shifts and collects around a central "core" in her chest, allowing her to move her body in seemingly unnatural ways. For example, when traveling through water mains to cover large distances1, she is able to corkscrew her mass around this central point and propel herself against the current. The largest limitation of her fluidity, aside from that of mass and form, is her inability to separate her body without experiencing extreme pain. Unlike a typical fluid, she retains a high degree of tension that disallows her to split around obstacles - only bend.

Resistances and weaknesses. Mercury, and in tandem, Gyras' body, is resistant to thermal change. She can survive unscathed in environments exceeding 300°C (572°F), though the higher she goes past that point, the more difficult it is for her to retain form. At 356.7°C (674.1°F), she will begin to boil, finding it incredibly strenuous to remain humanoid, create effective constructs, and move with precision. While remaining at this level of temperature can be weathered without permanent damage, too much exposure could fully compromise her body, even beginning to painfully evaporate it as metal vapor. Anything higher will eventually result in death.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, she functions best around room temperature, and will lose agility and flexibility the lower the temperature of her surrounding environment drops. At around -38.8°C (-37.8°F), her body will begin to freeze on the surface, and continued exposure to this temperature or lower could completely freeze her solid. While this is effectively less lethal than intense heat, it will render her completely immobile, at risk of fractures that - while not endangering her permanently - will be quite agonizing. Unlike thermal energy, Gyra is incredibly weak to electrical conductivity. Anything capable of exceeding 961 nΩ·m of resistance will stun her, while higher voltages can render her unconscious.

A stranger side-effect of her current makeup is that Gyras is completely immune to most abilities that rely on human physiology to function. Most forms of telepathy, compulsion, chemical alteration, sonic attacks, and similar powers will not effect her. Illusory powers will function properly if they work on a mirage base, but not if they rely on altering perception through psychic means. Chemicals that are normally lethal to humans, such as poisons, gases, and strong acids/bases, tend to not affect Gyras to the same degree (if at all), though her makeup makes her much more susceptible to corrosive substances that dissolve metal.

Effective immortality. Either as a direct result of the Lazarus treatment, or as some unforeseen side effect, Gyras is for all intents and purposes immortal. She is immune to aging, disease, and poisons, and obviously is unaffected by conditions such as hypothermia, heat stroke, exsanguination, and biological shock. Her body can be permanently compromised, however, and her lack of effective long-range coverage makes her easily incapacitated by distance freezing, heating, and energy attacks. She is not immune to fatigue, though it comes more in the form of mental exertion rather than bodily tiredness. Too much effort expended without rest will result in her losing full control over her form, greatly reducing her autonomy, mobility, and precision.

1: Though this may seem disconcerting (who wants mercury in their water?), her body's high level of tension prevents any metal from seeping into the water. In extreme conditions, such as intense heat or an encounter with a corrosive metal, travel by water main is inadvisable as a matter of domestic health. Regardless, the fact that she uses this method of travel is not made public, if only to prevent outcry.